A Father's Loves
by persnicketyfics
Summary: Severus Snape reminisces about falling in love as he watches his newborn child sleep. Originally published on AO3 for Father's Day 2016. I own not Harry potter and his ilk, but merely dabble with my drabbles in J.K. Rowling's world.


Severus had been a lot of things over the course of his forty-seven years. He'd been a student, a son, an irritant, a bully, the bullied, the class swot, a teacher, a dungeon bat, a Potions master, a sycophant, a lover, and a spy. He'd served megalomaniacs and taught dunderheads. But it occurred to him that there were two roles that he relished above all others. The first he had undertaken just over five years ago when he'd assumed the title of husband. The other title he'd received five minutes ago when he'd become a father.

He hadn't thought it was possible to feel this much, this many things, and all at once. He was equal parts exhilarated and terrified as he held his little scrap of a daughter in his arms. Lyra Callia Snape. Her squalling was music to his ears.

He looked down at his wife and smiled at her red, sweaty face. He still couldn't quite fathom how he'd managed to win the love of Hermione Snape, neé Granger.

She'd come to Hogwarts fresh out of university to take over the newly vacated position of Transfiguration Professor after its previous occupant had taken a job that paid _real_ galleons at Nott Co. Research Labs. Good riddance as the man had been an absolute prig. It had taken Severus all of an hour to recognize that his former student was no longer waving her hand in the air in a desperate bid for attention. Her time at uni, and away from the constant influence of her friends, had matured her. She'd somehow transformed into a beauty, growing into her figure and taming those wild curls into something altogether softer, more suited to the studious scholar she'd become. She was poised, erudite, intelligent, and cultured...and now so far above his dusty, musty self that he'd begun to grind his teeth in agony by the end of her first faculty meeting.

One meeting and he'd been besotted. One meeting and he'd recognized that the entire situation was impossible.

He was her superior both in years and in rank, as she'd arrived the same year he'd taken on the post of Deputy Headmaster under them much loved Headmistress McGonagall (She Who Shall Be Named Hereafter "Matchmaker"). He was an aging spy with little love for anything but a few creature comforts and his potions bench. She was a young, vivacious woman with enough passion to inspire a hundred classrooms of disinterested students. He was the mistrusted former spy, she the only female hero of The Golden Trio - a Gryffindor Princess far above his tainted touch.

And so he'd watched as she took her place amongst the Hogwarts faculty. And he'd admired. And lusted. And loved. In vain.

At least he had until Minerva had decided to take a page from her old friend's book and with eyes a-twinkling thrown the pair together. At first she asked them to teach a class on Muggle self-defense to a select group of students. Severus was well versed in judo and Hermione had received training in Krav Maga (which to this day still scared the blazes out of him). That effort had lasted approximately two class sessions until she'd bested him in a public sparring match and broken his sizeable nose.

Of course she'd healed it immediately, all apologies.

Then Minerva had set them on rounds together. Hermione's grace, despite her expertise in a Muggle martial art, had not increased with the passing years. On the first night they'd patrolled together, she'd tripped over a non-existent bump in the flagstone floor and crashed into Severus, nearly throwing him over a stone balustrade and down a fourteen floor drop to what would have likely been his very messy death. She'd managed to catch him by his cravat and haul him to safety, but his pride (and his arse) had been sorely bruised.

After that came assigned projects to clear the old potions storeroom. She'd dropped a jar of doxy eggs on his head when he'd come up behind her unexpectedly while she worked on the ladder above him. His head had itched for weeks after.

Their joint efforts in sorting and hauling Binns' office after the erstwhile professor had finally moved to the beyond had resulted in Hermione accidentally racking him in his golden snitches. He still couldn't understand how the corner of that cardboard box managed to land _just there_ as she'd turned.

Then they'd supervised a Hogsmeade trip where his fumbling attempt at meaningful conversation was interrupted when they'd spotted two seventh years rutting in the forest near the Shrieking Shack. Severus had been irate. The subsequent loss of fifty points each to Mr. Josephs and Mr. Cardeth did little to endear Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw toward one another.

Finally Minerva had given up on subtlety and locked Hermione and Severus in a broom closet during the annual staff Christmas party. The Headmistress had then proceeded to get legendarily drunk on a ghastly mixture of scotch and heavily brandied eggnog. She'd been unconscious for nearly a day and sick for another after that.

And Severus and Hermione had been left in a locked, silenced, and warded closet with only a plate of mince pies between them.

When Minerva had finally regained her faculties, Hermione had no longer been a virgin and Severus had no longer been a miserable dungeon hermit.

They were married the following June and had, unbeknownst to a certain Headmistress, chosen to spend the first day of their of their month-long honeymoon in an old broom closet with a plate of mince pies between them. Sometimes they still crept in there after curfew, carefully casting silencing charms as she giggled like the rule-breaker she'd once been. The rest of the honeymoon had been spent in Snape's Florentine estate, where they'd humped like bunnies and eaten themselves sick on a daily basis.

It remained one of the best months of his life.

They'd settled happily in new rooms in a seldom used tower at the South end of Hogwarts. The view was of the herbal knot garden that he and Pomona maintained for his potions ingredients. Minerva had, wisely, encouraged the castle to provide a suite with three bedrooms. Just in case.

Four years had come and gone and for all their teenage antics and (bless her) near-ceaseless shagging, Hermione had never quickened. It wasn't until Halloween of their fourth year of marriage that his lovely wife had burst into the bedroom waving some plastic contraption covered in who-knows-what under his nose. The little window on the stick clearly read "Pregnant." This was lucky as his wife was sobbing and babbling simultaneously and made about as much sense as a Merperson out of water.

"When?" had been his only question as he'd grasped her wrist and shared at the bobbling stick in fascination.

"July. Maybe August."

"Thank the gods." He'd crushed her to him, grateful to be on the path to the one thing they'd both longed for but been afraid to hope for. Their family would grow from two to three. Plus the cat.

It had been an adventure the likes of which he'd never thought to experience. There'd been disturbing dreams and erotic encounters, foot rubs and food cravings, emotional outbursts and exhaustion. But they'd weathered it, usually with some form of humor...and an ever-ready supply of Honeydukes Best chocolates.

And now he was standing here, a miniature reproduction of his wife's face in his arms. The tufts of dark hair on her head promised to mirror his one day, but she was otherwise the image of the only woman who'd ever loved him in return. He felt as though his heart had broken into a million pieces only to be stitched together stronger, larger, more whole. These females were his life. One to have and to hold, the other to cherish and to raise. Both of them to love.

He'd been sitting with his daughter long enough that Hermione had dozed off. When her eyes opened again, she smiled at her husband. "Hello. Daddy."

He straightened, then sat on the edge of her hospital bed so he could place a gentle kiss on her lips. "Hello, Mum."

There was no need to say more. He helped his wife sit up so he could place their daughter in her arms, watching with fascination as she adjusted her hospital gown and settled Lyra in to feed. The little mouth latched on instinctively, and he was suddenly exhausted with the sheer amount of unmitigated joy he'd experienced in the last hour.

Severus Snape never cried, but he felt his eyes prickle in an unfamiliar fashion as he watched his wife and his daughter together.

"I'm going to be a good father." He said it with determination. With conviction.

"Yes, Severus, I know you will. You've already had considerable practice with being the best husband."

He shot a glance at his wife who had torn her eyes away from their feeding child to look at him directly. She never failed to remind him of what he was to her.

"I love you, Hermione."

"And I you."

"And I love you, Lyra." He stroked a gentle finger over the downy head, still reeling from the ferocity with which he loved these two beings. How they had become the center of his world.

The new family sat like that, washed in a little beam of sunshine, gazing at each other in mutual adoration. Lyra's eyes closed first, her little mouth falling open in a rosy O. Hermione's eyes closed next, her energy sapped by the rigors of the long night. Severus simply sat and watched his loves sleep, more content with the world than he could ever remember.


End file.
